Over the years since 2009 to 2014, the total annual expenditure of Chinese visitors in Britain had soared by 326 percent to 497.47 million pounds (768.1 million dollars) according to the report.
"We aim to double the current annual expenditure in the UK by Chinese visitors to 1 billion pounds (about 1.5 billion dollars) a year within the next five years," Balcombe said.
Chinese visitors stay longer in Britain with an average holiday length of 10 nights compared with the average of six among all inbound visits, the VisitBritain report said.
They "make very detailed travel guides and request one or two days particularly for shopping, which means Chinese tourists are willing to spend more money while traveling," Wang Xiufu, manager of Elite UK Travel Ltd., a travel company for high-end Chinese customers, told Xinhua.
In addition, Chinese students studying in Britain have also contributed to the tourism industry, as they not only travel around the country themselves on holidays but also invite their parents or friends to come.
More than 150,000 Chinese students are studying in Britain, according to the Chinese embassy in London.
BRITAIN URGED TO FURTHER LOOSEN VISA REGIME
To make Britain the most welcoming destination in Europe for Chinese tourists so as to boost its economy, the British government and the tourism industry have done quite some work.
Before Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Britain in June 2014, the British government announced a series of steps to simplify the visa application process for Chinese visitors, including offering a 24-hour visa service and opening a new visa center in Beijing.
British tourism authorities launched a "China Welcome" campaign in early 2014, aiming to secure 650,000 Chinese visits annually by 2020.
On Dec. 3, 2014, VisitBritain staged a ten-week activity, encouraging the Chinese public to rename in Chinese famous places, tourist attractions across Britain. It reached around 300 million potential Chinese tourists via social media platforms such as Weibo and WeChat in China. Up to 13,000 new names were suggested.
In June this year, Britain announced a pilot scheme to streamline the visa application process for Chinese visitors, enabling them to submit applications for both Britain and Belgium in a single visit to a British application center, and simplifying the process for British and Schengen visas.
In September, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said during his China visit that the British government would invest 700,000 pounds (about 1.08 million dollars) to attract more Chinese tourists to visit northern England, which is less economically developed than most other parts of Britain.
